cover image Intergirl: A Hard Currency Hooker

Intergirl: A Hard Currency Hooker

Vladimir Kunin. Bergh Publishing, $0 (162pp) ISBN 978-0-930267-06-3

A bestseller in the U.S.S.R., this expose of Soviet prostitution denigrates a serious subject with histrionic, atrociously crafted prose and flimsy characters who serve as mouthpieces for the author's political agenda. Leningrad comrade Tanya is a caring nurse by day and a hard-bitten ``intergirl'' by night, who, despairing of making ends meet in a country of shortages and deprivations, sells her body to foreign tourists for hard currency or valuta. According to Kunin, there is no law against prostitution in the U.S.S.R., because the Soviet Union does not officially recognize the possibility of its existence in a perfect socialist society, but the possession of valuta is a grave criminal offense. To reach her customers, Tanya must pay off doormen, waiters and the like, and when she lucks out and becomes engaged to a Swedish businessman, she must continue to prostitute herself so she can bribe her impoverished father to sign a form granting her permission to emigrate. Once in Sweden, her new husband's friends won't let Tanya forget her sordid past, his frugality irritates her, she drowns homesickness in booze and she is warned that if she returns to Leningrad to visit her beloved, dying mother she'll be arrested at the airport. (July)